An old technique to detect atrial fibrillation via smartphone
When I was a cardiology fellow back in the 1980s, I learned about a variety of early tools for evaluating heart health that had been displaced by the modern standards of electrocardiography (ECG, or EKG for the Deutschephiles) and echocardiography. One such technique – ballistocardiography – stuck with me, and may be making a comeback.
Ballistocardiography is based on the observation that the mechanical action of the heart leads to subtle but reproducible movement of the whole body. It is the old “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” maxim in, well, action. We literally shudder a little bit each time th...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 18, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/ira-nash" rel="tag" > Ira Nash, MD < /a > Tags: Tech Cardiology Mobile health Source Type: blogs
Wearable MRI Detector Allows Imaging of Moving Joints
Researchers at NYU Langone Health have developed a wearable detector glove that allows them to image a moving hand in an MRI scanner. The glove allows for high-quality images of moving joints, whereby tendons and ligaments can be seen moving in relation to bones and muscle, and could be useful in helping to guide surgery. The capability should aid in the design of prostheses and for diagnosing conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
MRI is a hugely powerful imaging technique. However, it can typically only image motionless objects, meaning that the soft tissue dynamics of moving joints are out of grasp. Part of the pro...
Source: Medgadget - May 11, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Orthopedic Surgery Radiology Rehab Source Type: blogs
NIH-funded postdoc, and Research assistant / Lab manager position available in the O-Lab at Duke
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial; min-height: 14.0px} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Arial} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} span.s1 {font: 12.0px Arial}We are looking for highly motivated early-career researchers to join theO-Lab, led by Prof. Tobias Overath, in the Department of Psychology& Neuroscience at Duke University. Work in our lab investigates how sounds, from simple sinusoids to complex speech signals, are processed in the human brain, using a combination of behavioral (psychoacoustics) and neuroimaging methods (fMRI, EEG, ECoG) to track...
Source: Talking Brains - April 11, 2018 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Greg Hickok Source Type: blogs
Scientists Develop Technique to Mass Produce Drug Delivery Nanovesicles
Numerous technologies that use and help nanovesicles to deliver drugs to disease sites have been developed over the past few years, as any regular reader of Medgadget can attest to. We’re now at a stage when figuring out how to manufacture so-called extracellular nanovesicles (ENV) in millions, properly targeted, and on demand is a major hurdle to bring many nanotechnologies to clinical practice.
Ligands-grafted extracellular vesicles under transmission electron microscope, scale bar is 200 nm. Image: Yuan Wan
A team of scientists working at Penn State University, Second Affiliated Hospital of Southeast University a...
Source: Medgadget - March 15, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Materials Nanomedicine Source Type: blogs
Thoughts on Clinical Decision Support and its Future: Dr Greenes Interview
In two of my last blog posts, I have interviewed people and companies working in the support and implementation of decision support. With this blog post, I have the honor of interviewing Robert A. Greenes, MD, PhD, one of the first and leading researchers in clinical decision support (CDS) and my former CDS professor. He started as a co-developer of MUMPS in the 1960s while at Harvard Medical School and from there has been and continues to be involved in all aspects of CDS. One of his latest works has been editing and writing chapters for the first and second editions of Clinical Decision Support, The Road to Broad Ad...
Source: Medical Connectivity Consulting - March 14, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: Bridget Moorman Tags: Clinical Decision Support Source Type: blogs
3D Printed Patches with Living Cells Help to Overcome Tiny Blocked Vessels
Thrombotic blockages within blood vessels are a common health problem. When occlusions occur in large vessels, they can be relatively easy to deal with using wires, catheters, balloons, and stents. It is the smaller vasculature, which can be too narrow for intravascular instruments, that is currently nearly impossible to deal with.
Researchers at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) may have developed a technique that may help address tiny blocked vessels by growing new vessels to reestablish blood flow to ischemic tissues.
The team is using 3D printed patches that have endothelial cells...
Source: Medgadget - March 7, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Cardiology Genetics Materials Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs
3-year postdoc position available in the O-Lab at Duke University
We are looking for a highly motivated young scientist to join theO-Lab, led by Prof. Tobias Overath, in the Department of Psychology& Neuroscience at Duke University. Work in our lab investigates how sounds, from simple sinusoids to complex speech signals, are processed in the human brain, using a combination of behavioral (psychoacoustics) and neuroimaging methods (fMRI, EEG, ECoG) to track the underlying neural processes. Current projects investigate the transformation from acoustic to linguistic analysis of temporal speech structure, online measures of statistical learning, and optimization of cochlear implant codin...
Source: Talking Brains - March 3, 2018 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Greg Hickok Source Type: blogs
There Is Little Doubt The Game Is Changing - And Maybe Faster Than We Expect.
This appeared last week:Google's neural networks detect heart attack risk by looking at patients' eyesDrew Harwell& Carolyn Y. Johnson Published:February 20 2018 - 1:50PMBy looking at the human eye, Google's algorithms were able to predict whether someone had high blood pressure or was at risk of a heart attack or stroke, researchers at the company have confirmed, opening a new opportunity for artificial intelligence in the vast and lucrative global health industry.The algorithms didn't outperform existing medical approaches such as blood tests, according to a study of the finding published in the journal Nature Biomed...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - February 28, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
Device Measures Stiffness of Tens of Thousands of Cells to Screen Drugs for Safety (Video)
Force cytometry, or measurement of strength of cells, can be a useful indicator for assessing how specific drugs affect cell function. Rapidly performing thousands of force cytometry tests can help speed up drug testing, particularly for compounds intended to treat blood pressure, stroke, muscular dystrophy, and asthma. Scientists at UCLA and Rutgers University have now reported in journal Nature Biomedical Engineering on a new device that can perform force cytometry tests 100 times faster than existing technologies.
The team’s device is named fluorescently labeled elastomeric contractible surfaces (FLECS) and it r...
Source: Medgadget - February 21, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Genetics Medicine Public Health Source Type: blogs
Artificial Intelligence Predicts Cardiovascular Risk From Retinal Images
Google researchers predicted cardiovascular risk factors not previously thought to be quantifiable in retinal images using artificial intelligence, according to a study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. Scientists were able to identify risk factors such as age, gender, smoking status, blood pressure and major adverse cardiac events by only looking at the eye.
Cardiovascular diseases are lethal and widespread
According to the WHO, an estimated 17 million people die of cardiovascular diseases, particularly heart attacks and strokes, every year. Looking only at the statistics of heart diseases, one in every fourth d...
Source: The Medical Futurist - February 21, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine A.I. AI cardiovascular digital health eye future google Innovation Source Type: blogs
Medical Device Security: a Simple Roadmap and What to Do Right Now
Join us for an in-depth discussion with Caston Thomas, an expert in the field of data security with an emphasis helping hospitals secure and manage their medical devices, networks and IT assets.
This event will be on February 21, 2018 at 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific time.
Register Here
Our discussion will delve into the following areas:
How medical device security differs from IT security, and how to make the best use of the skills sets in both departments
Building a framework for locking down medical devices and addressing the challenges that have inhibited our progress until now
How we improve governance in IT and biomedic...
Source: Medical Connectivity Consulting - January 31, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: Tim Gee Tags: Data Security Interviews Source Type: blogs
Medical Device Data Security: Caston Thomas Tells Us What to Do Right Now
Join us for an in-depth live interview with the Chuck Norris of data security, Caston Thomas.
This event will be on February 14, 20018 at 3pm Eastern, noon Pacific time.
Our discussion will delve into the following areas:
Defining the medical device data security challenge in realistic terms
Changes required in IT and biomedical engineering governance to improve medical device data security
Explore the various technology solutions available for medical device data security, and
Delve into how data security for medical devices is different than your typical IT data security
During the interview, Caston will also take...
Source: Medical Connectivity Consulting - January 31, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: Tim Gee Tags: Data Security Interviews Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 22nd 2018
In conclusion, death is a natural part of human existence, but human progress is essentially a story of overcoming undesirable natural limits. In the near future, technological progress might make it possible to stop natural biological death. Should humankind embrace such technology? Yes: Even though such technology would not be without risks, the risks are almost certainly manageable. The benefits of ending natural death, on the other hand, are immense. Death is an obstacle that is slowing down human progress. If we remove that obstacle, humankind could increase the speed of both its moral and its epistemic progress.
...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 21, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Heart Muscle Patches as a Vehicle to Improve Cell Engraftment and Survival
Heart muscle patches are thin engineered sections of tissue, lacking blood vessels because construction of microvasculature is still an unsolved challenge, and small because without blood vessels there is a size limit on engineered tissue. The study here suggests that we should be thinking of a present-day heart muscle patch, and most of its structure and cells, as a disposable vehicle to deliver only a fraction of its cells, keeping them alive long enough to engraft alongside native cells. The rest of the cells in the patch last only long enough to temporarily change the balance of signaling in an aged or injured heart. T...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 15, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Nanoparticle-Based Imaging of Metastasis Throughout Body
Common radiological tumor detection technique these days is done using contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which can only detect tumors of a certain size or larger. This is a major limitation, as it leaves patients with smaller tumors that grow and spread undetected, preventing early treatment of many cancers. Researchers at Rutgers University have just reported in journal Nature Biomedical Engineering on a new, nanoparticle technique of spotting and imaging of very small tumors simultaneously throughout different organs of the body.
The team developed rare-earth-doped albumin-encapsulated nanoparticles tha...
Source: Medgadget - December 19, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Nanomedicine Oncology Radiation Oncology Radiology Source Type: blogs
